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Hey, did ‘ya see the headlines? “ABC News Editor Don ‘Dawn’ Ennis Comes Out As Transgender” Now generally, I do not appreciate it when the media is the news, but hey, this is really big news! A career professional at a company known throughout the modern world is transgender, and is going to transition on the job! Yea, that is big!

I applaud Dawn’s courage and decision to transition. I hope she will continue to have a long and distinguished journalism career with one of the great news organizations.

However, I admit that I have been critical about the manner in which she couched her announcement. Her coming out statement included this: “Ennis said she suffers from an ‘unusual hormonal imbalance,’ and blames her mother, who fed her female hormones as a child to prolong a commercial acting career.”

“I have a rare medical condition — nothing deadly or infectious — but it has resulted in an unusual hormonal imbalance,” she explains. “One so profound that I don’t resemble the man you first met 10 years ago.”

My posts today have demonstrated my concerns.

“This is good, but to seize upon a “rare medical condition” as the result of a hormonal imbalance induced in childhood seems a wee tad disingenuous. It seems much more authentic to just claim our true selves unabashedly.”

I got a few tepid responses, including one from a transwoman who was the successful plaintiff in a now notorious federal circuit court discrimination case which established as a matter of law (at least in that circuit) that Gender Identification Dysphoria (GID) is a “serious medical condition.” And so it is true.

I replied: “I could not agree with you more, but our “medical condition” is not the one which Dawn is asserting. Many of us feel & assert that we were born TG, not forced to become TG by some post womb atrocity purposely committed by our mothers. I don’t believe for a moment that you really accord the feeling of being born in the wrong body to mere eccentricity, but you seem to be asserting as much. I also do not agree that gender incongruence can be induced by merely ingesting hormones as a child. It seems like Dawn’s assertion is more of an attempt to legitimize her nature in the eyes of a misunderstanding and judgmental public by reference to some scurrilous outside influence, rather than just claiming her true self as many of us have had to do. Yes, it is disingenuous and a disservice. BTW, I have read, understood and applauded the legal argument “Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a serious medical condition.” I do not see that Dawn’s assertions are analogous merely because of the “rare medical condition” language in which she has framed the legitimization of her transgender nature. So, there ‘ya have it.”

A friend wrote: “We must just continue to push through to make the world safe and accepting for all. Trans is. No need to legitimize it. It’s already legit. Takes a huge amount of personal courage to be who you are without apology or justification whether you are trans, intersex or uniquely average….”

Another friend wondered: “Can I attribute it to her being somewhat new at this, especially at being SO out?” She is always the compassionate peacemaker, and I admire that quality in the few people I know who truly possess it.

My response: “Yes, of course. I admire your compassion. The difficulty is that, like a friend of mine says, when we make shit up, we come to believe it, and when we believe it we have to defend it. Thus, I came to believe the lies I told myself to justify my existence, while all the while no justification was ever necessary (Just as my friend so eloquently stated). I am what I am! I am a transexual! I celebrate me. And because it is so, because I am authentic, other people embrace, love and accept me too. Honesty really is the best policy.”

And that brings me to the point of this piece. (For shame that it took so long, I know).

If you have ever had to disclose your transsexual identity to anyone important in your life, you realize immediately that most people have a great deal of difficulty wrapping their heads around the concept. Many people simply do not understand. And there is scant “medical science” to assist them. They cannot run to the Physician’s Desk Reference, for instance, and read about the scientific, double blind, controlled study of the effect of too much exposure upon a fetus of what turns out to be opposite sex hormones while in utero. But, that is the current, most widely accepted theory on the cause of GID.

Many would dispute such an unscientific theory as mere poppycock. The simple truth is that even the best, most widely accepted theory does not help the larger world to understand and accept trans people. Now here’s the rub.

A very important person in a high profile international news organization is suggesting an even more novel theory – not hormone over exposure in utero, but, hormone over exposure during childhood. However, the science that we do know suggests that this is unlikely. Gender identification is fixed by age three and is extremely difficult to change after that. (Pamela J. Kalbfleisch, Michael J. Cody (1995). Gender, power, and communication in human relationships. Psychology Press. pp. 366 pages. ISBN 0805814043. Retrieved June 3, 2011; Ann M. Gallagher, James C. Kaufman, Gender differences in mathematics: an integrative psychological approach, Cambridge University Press, 2005; “gender identity.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 11 Mar. 2011). So, unless Dawn’s commercial acting career was in full swing as an infant or toddler, the exposure to hormones would not likely have had the impact which she ascribes to them. Personally, I am rather dubious if they would have that effect even earlier.

Don’t get me wrong. The hormones would have an effect on her emotional state while she was taking them. Just ask men who have been treated with Depo Prevara (Reduces sex drive, compulsive sexual fantasies, and capacity for sexual arousal. Some users show increases in body fat and reduced bone density. There may also be other “feminizing” effects such as gynecomastia (development of larger than normal mammary glands in males), reduced body hair, and loss of muscle mass). Most of these effects are considered reversible when use is discontinued.

Likewise, introduction of anti-androgens and estrogen therapy is a treatment option for men with prostate cancer. It produces some of the same side effects, including changes in sexual desire, including loss of libido, changes in facial or body hair growth, and mood changes including anxiety, frustration, anger, depression and emotional outbursts. When my late father-in-law began hormone therapy for his prostrate cancer we teasingly suggested he would grow boobs and develop a new interst in picking flowers. Unfontunately, cancer occurred throughout his body and took him before we could test that theory.

While some might quip about possible similarities to Pre-menstrual Stress, a uniquely feminine phenomena, with the exception of sympathetic reactions in some men, there is simply no medical evidence that the introduction of female hormones to men cause them to be confused about their gender; or, to believe that they are actually women, or, that they were born that way, that they can do nothing to change that, and that they are no longer able to live in this binary culture unless they are able to become the woman that they believe inside that they have always been. I suspect the same would be true for a small boy.

So, as a person who has painfully experienced these things over the course of forty eight years in the wrong body, I do take exception. Yes, it is a wee tad disingenuous to assert that post-utero forced use of opposite sex hormones causes GID. It suggests that a transperson can be made that way instead of born that way. And, if they can be made that way, they can choose not to. That is not the experience of the trans people I have become associated with over the last several years (1500 or so). We are born that way. We did not and cannot choose to be trans. Who would? And it is a profound disservice to their courage and integrity to suggest otherwise.

“Personally, I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle, or like, premarital sex between heterosexuals … it says that that’s a sin … I believe that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ,” he said on the show. “So, I would not characterize that person as a Christian, because I don’t think the Bible would characterize that person as a Christian.”

~ Chris Broussard, ESPN Commentator.

Bible (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

I do so wish to avoid judging those who judge others. Thus, I have tried to avoid comment upon the religious right rhetoric about LGBT people. Yet, it is becoming increasingly clear that statements like the above quote stray from even the most basic of Christian tenets, Jesus’s command that we “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34-35. Moreover, for a biblical literalist, the above scriptural interpretation (Not cited, but denominated as biblical by the phrase, “it says.” ) is simply inaccurate. Finally, one of the most basic rules of journalism is that the media represent all sides of an issue. And, there is another side to this story.

So, what is gained by my silence? Some great Christian leaders have posited that to be silent in the face of oppression is to join the oppressor. (E.g., Dr. King, and more recently, Bishop Gene Robinson). Thus, I gladly risk the criticism that I am being judgmental in favor of speaking out on behalf of the oppressed. I speak my truth to power.

Now, about Gay Christians. The term is neither an oxymoron nor disingenuous. I personally identify as LGBT and Christian. I believe that Jesus is Lord! According to scripture, I cannot make such a statement lightly, but only by the power of the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:3). Moreover, if I say it and believe it than scripture guarantees my salvation. (Romans 10:9). Hence, the scriptural formulaic equation for salvation is not exclusive. I can be Gay and Christian. And I am not alone in this belief.

There are a whole host or Christian organizations, many of which we see on Face Book every day, dedicated to the same proposition. We are in the minority now, but I believe that as we continue to change the world that all of Christendom will likewise evolve. One such group is called Fortunate Families, a national organization of Catholic parents with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender children, with a passion for social justice advocacy and a focus on the Catholic Church and LGBT issues. In my present church affiliation, Methodist, we have the Reconciling Ministries Network whose purpose is to mobilize United Methodists of all sexual orientations and gender identities to transform our Church and world into the full expression of Christ’s inclusive love. The Episcopal church has an organization called Integrity, whose mission it is to inspire and equip the Episcopal Church, its dioceses, congregations, and members to proclaim and embody God’s all-inclusive love for LGBTQ persons and those who love them. Perhaps you know of others.

When it comes to scripture, I am merely a “jack-theologian,” so-to-speak. While I have a minor in religious studies, I certainly do not have any sort of divinity degree. However, I have at least read the passages to which I refer. I understand that they have been through multiple translations over the millennia, and were written in a vastly different culture with a vastly inferior world view, knowledge and technology, and that they were gathered into what we now know as the Bible by church fathers in the Third Century. (Even a cursory search reveals that the origins of the Bible is a complicated story rife with dissension and debate). Scripture did not even have line and verse until the 16th century. (The Bible was divided into chapters in the 13th century by Stephen Langton and into verses in the 16th century by French printer Robert Estienne). People believed over the entire 4,000 or so years that the various books of the Bible were written that the world was flat and the heavens (and God) resided a few hundred feet above them. Science now informs our world view to cast aside such notions, as well as the notion that the Biblical genealogy found in Genesis denotes the age of the world.

Against that backdrop, we have the self-righteous and inflammatory conclusions above. They can be summarized as follows: The bible says that homosexuality is a sin in open rebellion to God and Jesus. In claiming to be LGBT and Christian I must, as Gene Robinson says, “unabashedly” assert that this statement is false! None of the Gospels attribute to Jesus as ever uttering a single word about homosexuality, much less the word itself, or that he would accord it to himself as “open rebellion.” No such word existed in Hebrew or Greek, the two main languages in which the books of the bible were written. The word “homosexual” is not in the Bible, except in oblique translations of the six or so references to men “lying” with men in the Hebrew text and Paul’s letters, the most notorious of which is found in Leviticus 18:22: “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” (Evidently, the only reason one lies with a female is to have sex. But is it okay if I lie with a woman until I need glasses? Sorry, I digress (impishly laughing to self with tongue firmly in cheek)).

The Hebrew term, shiqquwts is translated as “abomination” by almost all translations of the Bible. The similar words, sheqets, and shâqats, are almost exclusively used for dietary violations. Toeba, is also translated as abomination in some texts. Many modern versions of the Bible translate it as “detestable”or “loathsome.” I hear one Rabbi refer to it as “yicky.” Biblical literalists interpret this to mean that same-sex sexual activity is an abomination and therefore inherently sinful. (Note, however, that it is not one of the Ten Commandments).

However,please consider that a word or phrase which has been translated through multiple languages over centuries and the subject of great debate and disagreement among the worlds great scholars and theologians, inherently, cannot credibly be taken as a modern-day literal truth. Moreover, this supposed proscription was part of what is called the ancient Hebrew Holiness Code which highly regulated the everyday lives of ancient Hebrew men, from what they were to wear to what they were to eat. Violations of these rules were also called abominations. The code referred to how they were to treat one another too. Later prophets make this clear. In a little referred to scripture, Ezekiel says at 16:49-50: “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me.” Clearly, Sodom’s lack of hospitality is the abomination.

Yet, there is no mention of the word, “homosexual,” again defying the literalists. They cannot rely on the literal words of scripture to reach the result they want, but must interpret the meaning of the words used through their various translations over time in spite of later clarification within the Bible’s own pages. Now I wonder how to characterize the above quotation from the ESPN announcer. Is it hospitable, or detestable and loathsome? Is it an abomination? What would Ezekiel say?

As a disenfranchised Catholic, I cannot help but be intrigued and even a little hopeful about Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation. I do not like Benedict even though I love the church. I grew up Catholic, was both an altar and choir boy, and even considered becoming a priest. I can’t imagine how that would have turned out.

English: Pope Benedict XVI in Italy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nonetheless, the American/Roman Catholic culture became my culture. My friends were Catholic. We attended the Catholic grade school and church at the corner of my street. I later went to a Catholic high school and college (University of Dayton). I especially loved the new music in the church, and played and sang those songs in a church music group for years. I even came to appreciate the deep meaning and spiritual significance of the Mass and other Catholic traditions.

I have never heard an explanation for this elevation of one of Jesus’ principles over that of others, and would love to read the apologetics which justifies this doctrine promulgated by the self perpetuating (and protecting) hierarchical system known as the church. But, that is perhaps another matter.

Be that as it may, apparently not all church members agree with these judgmental policies. “Equally Blessed, an LGBT-inclusive Catholic group, issued a statement upon Benedict’s announcement and said members were ‘grateful that Pope Benedict XVI had the foresight and humility to resign his office for the sake of the church to which he has given his life.’

The organization added that the Roman Catholic Church now has the opportunity to change the church and overturn oppressive, homophobic policies.

‘We pray for a pope who is willing to listen to and learn from all of God’s people. We pray for a pope who will realize that in promoting discrimination against LGBT people, the church inflicts pain on marginalized people, alienates the faithful and lends moral credibility to reactionary political movements across the globe. We pray for a pope who will lead the church in looking the sexual abuse scandal squarely in the eye and make a full report on the complicity of the hierarchy in the sexual trauma inflicted on children around the world. We pray for a pope who is willing to make himself vulnerable on behalf of the voiceless, the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed.’” http://www.advocate.com/politics/religion/2013/02/11/pope-benedict-xvi-announces-resignation.

I wish I could be as genial and hopeful, but, sadly, I must acknowledge as have others that many of the Cardinals who will select Benedict’s successor (and from whose ranks he will be chosen) were handpicked by Benedict himself. Thus, it is very likely that they share his views and support his policies.

I pray from the depths of my soul for a pope who will truly believe these words from a popular Catholic hymn*:

I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard my people cry.
Who will bear my light to them?
Whom shall I send?

Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart

When John Lennon sang, “Imagine there’s no heaven . . . And no religion too,” I did not like it, having just been born again. I had found God, and the English translation, New International Bible was my ticket to keep what I had found. I loved the Bible, and read each page with fervor. They told me every single word was literally true, and I believed it.

KJV Bible (Photo credit: knowhimonline)

Never mind that many of those words were written by ancient Hebrew men for Hebrew men, and other of those words by citizens of ancient Rome; that they were written in equally archaic and foreign languages including Hebrew and Aramaic, and then translated into Greek and Latin; and, that they were written in the context of limited understanding and ancient customs for an audience of people with equally limited understanding and ancient customs; and, that they were later edited by the Catholic Church during many great councils into what we know today; I believed that those words were actually God speaking to me in 1976, and many times since. (Yes, I am that old).

I wanted to know who and what God is, and believed those words were the path of discovery. As intellectual as I can be, I chased that knowledge for many years. Yet for all that I prayed and read and asked for God’s will in all things, the spiritual life that had once begun so earnestly lay in ruin like a dry rotted old Montana homestead cabin. Only the vestiges of livelihood remained. At the end of the day, I was still drunk and demoralized. I was spiritually dead, and cursed God for all the inherent contradictions in “God’s Word.” How could I, a God-fearing, born-again, right-wing, Republican Christian be what I was beginning to realize was my true self – a transsexual? That was against the Bible.

But, what if the Bible was not a literal document? What if it is a compendium of inspired writings about the nature of God, and God’s interaction with humanity and our world? What if my experience of God was eqaully valied and important, as John Wesley suggested? What if the bible is not a religious, quasi-legal code book securing the salvation of my soul, as much as it is inspiration feeding the life of my soul right here and right now? When I turned to God with these questions in the pit of my soul, God answered. God said, “Bobbie, you are a beautiful daughter of God.”

When I was scared and confused about the truths I came to know about myself and who I am, God asked me dance, and smiled. God reminded me of a simple, yet fundamental truth about God. God is. That is all. It does not matter whether I know or understand who or what God is – just that I know that God is. Once I cast all else aside, and became open to that single, vital truth I was free to experience God – I mean right here, right now. God continued to dance with me and smile through every step of my gender transition.

It does not matter that others would say it ain’t so –that I have misinterpreted the will of God. God speaks to me in my soul, not theirs. Because I have experienced God there, I know that God is, and that God loves me for all that I am, and exactly what I am. Now, that is redemption! Maybe that Lennon guy was on to something after all.

I read an article by an ethicist who answered a question in the New York Times about the morality of gender transition pitted against the harm it may cause a family. It is a Hobson’s choice, really, as there is no good answer in the end. But, I guess that’s why ethicists get paid the big bucks.

Gender transition is selfish. No doubt about it. But, so is just about any medical treatment, alcohol recovery for instance. Gender dysphoria might just as surely kill you as alcoholism in my experience. Yes, I had both, and after several years of living in the proper gender and in recovery with all of the attendant hardship, heartbreak and happiness, I am perhaps uniquely qualified to say that both are a means of survival. I had to do both, or neither would have saved me from myself, so bad was my sense of demoralization and hopelessness.

Yet, behind me lies a trail of loss, separation and broken relationships. My decision to transition hurt other people whether or not their reaction may be perceived as just or warranted. Thus, I might be rightly asked whether it was the right thing to do. Was it just? Was it ethical? Or was it merely necessary irrespective of the consequences?

In reverse order, my need to transition was more than manifest at the time, so frail was my grasp upon a life not hell bent on personal destruction. Some may rightly conclude that my transition should not matter to others if I was going to be dead anyway, even if by my own hand. At the time, and for all the years since I have believed that I would not have made it, but for transition and recovery. But what if . . . ?

What if I had found recovery and reserved transition for later in life, if at all? Of course, I was already 48 when I began. But, might I have learned a way through recovery to live a sober life as a man, and still kept my job, my friends, my family and my marriage? Is that possible? Of course it is? But is it likely? That is a much more germane question, given the level of dysfunction following nearly half a century of gender confusion, fear, guilt, shame, ambiguity, etc., which was merely masked and drown out through alcohol dependancy.

The answer, then, is that it is much more likely that as the masks of dependency were stripped away, the difficulty maintaining the duality of self would have only grown worse, not better, and continually threatened the chances of recovery taking hold. But, even If I could have made it through reliance on God, a sponsor and a recovery group, what difference would it have made.

Would I have kept the relationships and people I lost in my transition – my children, friends, colleagues and acquaintances who have all turned away? Probably, but I must believe that those relationships would be strained as ever, particularly because recovery involves rigorous honesty. It is our secrets which often make us so sick. At some point, I would have had to tell my truth to the people in my life. I could not have continued to live vicariously through cross-dressing in private, for it would seem ever more the lie. And what then? What purpose does it serve to tell the truth and not live it – to be honest, but not authentic? Forgive me for waxing apologetically.

I never meant to hurt the people in my life, but, I still believe to my core that I did the right thing. Moreover, I could not foretell a person’s reaction, and, though I knew them well, predictions and expectations of how a person will take the news of gender dysphoria are pure and painful folly.

Therefore, I had to step out in faith, reveal the dysphoria and prescribed treatment and then deal with the reaction. It does not work the other way around, as there is no way to sort of test the waters before jumping in. People have no frame of reference, no experience to fall back on when a trans person reveals themself, and they can no more control their reaction than I can. It is a gut level, sometimes gut rendering response that typically involves either rejection or openness, if not confusion. If a person can be open and willing to accept the trans person, there is a chance at a continued relationship. However, if the knee jerk reaction is rejection the door may be firmly closed. And I have second guessed myself enough times to know that the process of revelation makes very little difference in the long run. Either a person gets it, or they don’t. And there is simply no way to know ahead of time which it shall be.

Thus, the trans person can take only one of two paths. They can remain forever inside their secret gender box with all the dueling emotions and resulting pain and dysfunction that hiding brings for the sake of their family and friends and to avoid the risk of emotional harm to others. Or, they can stumble blindly and uncertainly along the path to authenticity, assuming the risk that not all will choose to go along.

Gender transition is not a question of right or wrong, per ‘se, but rather it is one of possibility, necessity and risk. Can the trans person live without transition, and are they willing to assume the risks inherent in either choice – a life forever locked in dysfunction and incongruence, or one without the ones they love who also lose someone dear.

I was moved today by the story of a young (30) trans woman who wants be a mother. Not surprisingly, she is plagued with fears of the unknown. Her parents have disowned her because she had the courage to reveal her truth. What if her child did the same? Can she find a man who can embrace her and walk with her and a child as a family? Though she has much love to give, she searches for someone to give it to. It is a familiar story, tragically repeated amongst so many trans persons.

It is one that daily resonates with me. (Only, it is my children who have disowned me.) “Who will love me?” I often wonder. “Who can love me?” is the great trans lament.

“I realized that gender transition, even under the best of circumstances, is unequivocal and unforgiving. It required of me everything I had, and then some. I was still paying for it. Yet, there was no compromise, no half measure. I had to make my way in the world as a woman or not at all. I had been blessed and fortunate to have done so as quickly as I had and with relative ease. Still, I was resigned to accept the fact that some pieces would never be complete. I doubted that I would overcome gender identity discrimination in Montana, and it did not seem likely that I would find a man who could accept me and love me as the whole person that I am. I had a whole heart, and I wanted the person who could take the hard part and love that too. (The “Hard Part” by Dave Wilcox). I wanted the person with whom I could share every secret so that secrets would be no more. That person was not to be found.

I began to accept that too, as I mused about just who would want a trans woman for a partner. In the ordinary course, a heterosexual male is looking for a heterosexual woman, not a heterosexual trans woman. Guys, with few exceptions, think it’s just too freaky for them to accept. A lesbian woman likewise does not want a lesbian trans woman, as we are sometimes perceived as something less than a real woman. And I get that. Even though I have this hunger to be known, I’m not like the girl next door.”

TransMontana, pp 281-82. (I try here to write for the entire trans community – not just me.)

So, I try to stop speculating about what might or might not be. I have no control over what is yet to come, so must try to let go of fear. My life is now – not some distant point in the future. It is right here, right now. I must live it, even though not as full or complete as I might like. I have peace and joy in whom and what I am. I may be a social enigma, but I know in my heart that I am whole as a woman, even though born as a man. I believe in myself. That gives me great comfort and strength. Thus, I am able to interact with the rest of the world with honesty, authenticity and integrity. And if I may find someone who can love me like that, well, it will have been worth the wait.

It was 9:30 at the Helena City Council meeting when the mayor slightly rolled his eyes as he tapped his gavel, signaling the close of the public hearing portion on final passage of the LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance.

“What’s your pleasure,” he said to the council members.

The council took up four amendments proposed by the sponsor in a vain attempt to rescue her two years of campaigning and soulful work on this ordinance to make it as fair and inclusive as possible. The other members of the commission were simply not having it, as she tried to persuade them to drop the trans phobic “locker room” amendment.

“It’s beyond the limits of my understanding,” the mayor proclaimed with exasperation, and a council member said the same a few minutes later.

And, then again, “This is beyond the limits of my understanding,” the mayor repeated, seemingly liking the sound of the phrase he had coined even more the second time around.

He just as well have said, “I don’t understand, and I don’t want to understand!” for that is what I heard with a sinking feeling that remains with me, now rooted in my psyche just as firmly as the amendment is now part of the ordinance, which to some now codifies the vilification of trans people, and legalizes a certain form of discrimination against them.

I had not considered these thoughts prior to the hearing, and I apologize to the trans community for failing you. I had taken the amendment lightly, as if any self respecting pre-op trans woman would be caught dead showing off the wrong genitalia in the women’s locker room. (I focus on trans women only because that was the sum and substance of the hysteria at the hearing, though I do not wish to belittle the safety risk to trans men in the men’s locker room.) I know that I would not have dared reveal my pre-op attachment – I was way too afraid of being read. I’m thinking a penis would have been a dead give away. But, more than that, I am far too modest and respecting of the women around me to compromise them in such a way, for I take my solidarity with women as a sacred trust. For it is to this sisterhood that I belong, and losing that sense of belonging, as a woman among women, would be a fate worse than death. Indeed, it would be as akin to death or more, while yet breathing, as were the last years of living as a man, drunk, dispirited and demoralized.

Could I have made a difference by continuing to urge a more specific understanding, as I had in general terms in my testimony? Some have suggested that the council member who proposed the amendment relied on his belief that I “was okay with it” in so doing. Well, I wasn’t okay with it. In fact, I had posted just last week (and sent the post to the council) a suggested compromise to the amendment whereby a public accommodation would not be discriminating if they asked a person who displayed socially inconsistent genitalia in the locker room to leave. Some would have trouble with even this compromise, although, given my statements above about fear, modesty and solidarity, I think it is entirely reasonable. I stand by it.

Nonetheless, I did not talk about bathrooms in my testimony, so, council members evidently did not feel that the trans community objected. I am just one person who testified, I realize, however, many have looked to me to represent their interest and I did not. I let you down and I regret that.

As I ponder these matters, in the quiet half light of dusk, with a growing philosophical sense, I realize that I am not to blame. No one is that powerful – to enlighten the minds of those with limits upon their own understanding.

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D Gregory Smith is a gay, HIV+ native Montanan; a Rome-educated Episcopal priest and a licensed mental health counselor. He is a member of the board of directors of Pride Foundation and Interchange.
He is also a teacher, health educator, firm and gentle activist, poet, theologian, spiritual adventurer, husband, interviewer, geek, opinionated and witty social-justice-oriented optimist who loves to write- and he does (when he can find time) here and at Bilerico.com. He is also a contributor to several other blogs and sites, including the newsmagazine LGBTQ Nation.

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